This invention relates to chromium catalysts to oligomerize olefins. This invention also relates to a process to oligomerize olefins.
Supported chromium oxide catalysts have been a dominant factor in the production of olefin polymers, such as polyethylene or copolymers of ethylene and hexene. Supported chromium catalysts can be used in a variety of polymerization processes. Additionally, most known chromium compounds must be supported to be catalytically active and most supported chromium compounds are useful only for olefin polymerization. If an olefin copolymer is desired, the polymerization process becomes more complex, in that two different monomers must be fed to the polymerization reactor.
Olefin trimerization and oligomerization catalysts are also known in the art, but usually lack selectivity to a desired product and have a low product yield. However, olefin trimerization and/or oligomerization, if done efficiently, is a process to provide useful olefins. These olefinic products can be further trimerized, oligomerized and/or, optionally, incorporated into a polymerization process.